‘PKB’ — as it quickly became known; the full version of the name is meant to highlight the seeming-contradiction in a beer being both hoppy and dark — was the first Yeastie Boys release. It also — appropriately enough — went on to contradict their usual modus operandi by returning for batch after batch (slightly tweaked, each time). It’s now intended to be available year-round, in these fetchingly-labelled 330ml bottles.

The rumour around Beer Nerd circles was that this first bottled batch had its hops ‘backwards’, with the result that there was less emphasis on the citrussy American Cascade hop front. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not — there is a disturbing little trend, even among properly-geeky craft brewers, of ‘covering up’ these little accidental variations that happen from time to time — but even if it is, from my tasting of this first-batch bottle, it’d only mean this was effectively another minor ‘remix’, and still a delicious, conspicuously-hopped, rich dark ale.

Deciding how to style-tag ‘Her Majesty’ was difficult enough, but this one complicates things in its own way, too. In both cases, I’ve opted for ‘Porter’, and Porter is how PKB was initially pitched, although always with things like “American-style” or “hoppier-than-usual” appended to the front. Truth is, this really deserves credit for being part of the emergence of what will amount to the newest craft beer style: Black IPA. More and more breweries are experimenting in this direction, with frequently-delicious results.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Pot Kettle Black’ 8/9/10 330ml from Stu himself @ Beervana time. 6% The first bottled Yeastie, and the rumour among the beer nerds is that the hops are backwards, lessening the Cascade focus. (In this batch, at least.) Seems plausible, but that would only ever relegate this to “delicious Porter” — [with] a touch more zip + zest than usual. Ooh, it grows, though.